The machine of this invention is particularly useful for cracking black walnuts, but it is also useful for cracking other types of hard-shelled nuts. It is especially useful to relatively small scale nut growers, because it is inexpensive, but rugged and effective.
The problem of cracking and extracting the meat from a large number of hard-shelled nuts, particularly black walnuts and hickory nuts, has vexed growers and users of nuts, and has resulted in numerous patents directed to machines for cracking nuts. These patented machines have been of three or four main sorts. One approach, exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,218,968 and 5,115,733 relies upon rotating plates which are either on parallel axes and biased toward one another ('968) or upon making one plate slightly skewed toward the other so that when a nut is introduced between the plates, it can roll until it is compressed between the plates to crack it. Another has been the use of a plurality of wheels the perimeters of which form a small opening through which nuts pass, being cracked in the process, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,032. Yet another approach has been the use of what is essentially a jaw crusher, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,123. Variations of these approaches are illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,441,414 and 5,247,879.
Most of these prior art patents are directed to shelling such nuts as pecans, which pose different problems from black walnuts, for example. Because black walnut shells are desired as abrasives, and because the meat of a black walnut is difficult to extract, it is necessary and desirable to fragment the shells to a greater degree than would be desirable for pecans or English walnuts, for example. However, the machine of this invention can be adjusted to accommodate nuts such as English walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans.
One of the objects of this invention is to provide a nut cracking machine that is rugged, dependable, relatively simple as compared with prior art machines, and effective to crack and permit the extraction of the meat from hard-shelled nuts in quantity.
Other objects will become apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the following description and accompanying drawings.